Pain and Empathy: The Effect of Self-Oriented Feelings

on the Detection of Painful Facial Expressions

Delphine Grynberg1*, Pierre Maurage1,2
1 Psychological Sciences Research Institute, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 2 Laboratory for Experimental Psychopathology, Psychological
Sciences Research Institute, Universite Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

Abstract
Background: Painful facial expressions have been shown to trigger affective responses among observers. However, there is
so far no clear indication about the self- or other-oriented nature of these feelings. The purpose of this study was to assess
whether facial expressions of pain are unconsciously associated with other-oriented feelings (empathic concern) or with
self-oriented feelings (personal distress).
Method: 70 participants took part in a priming paradigm in which ambiguous facial expressions of pain were primed by
words related to empathic concern, distress, negative or by neutral words. It was hypothesized that empathic concern or
distress-related words might facilitate the detection of pain in ambiguous facial expressions of pain, independently of a
mere effect of prime (i.e., neutral words) or an effect of valence congruency (negative primes).
Results: The results showed an effect of prime on the detection and on the reaction time to answer pain when confronted
to ambiguous facial expressions of pain. More specifically, the detection of pain was higher and faster when preceded by
distress primes relative to either neutral or negative primes.
Conclusion: The present study suggests that painful expressions are unconsciously related to self-oriented feelings of
distress and that their threat value might account for this effect. These findings thus shed new light on the automatic
relationship between painful expressions and the affective components of empathy.
Citation: Grynberg D, Maurage P (2014) Pain and Empathy: The Effect of Self-Oriented Feelings on the Detection of Painful Facial Expressions. PLoS ONE 9(7):
e100434. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0100434
Editor: Alessio Avenanti, University of Bologna, Italy
Received January 17, 2014; Accepted May 27, 2014; Published July 1, 2014
Copyright: 2014 Grynberg, Maurage. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: This study was also supported by grant 1.1233.09 from the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS-FRS) to Delphine Grynberg (Research
Fellow). Pierre Maurage is a FNRS Research Associate. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of
the manuscript. No additional external funding received for this study.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
* Email: Delphine.Grynberg@uclouvain.be

influence of pain appraisal and perspective taking on situational

affective empathic responses to painful expression [1]. This study
has shown that (1) imagining oneself triggers distress while
imagining another person triggers empathic concern; (2) when
imagining the other person, empathic concern responses are
positively correlated with the anterior medial cingulate cortex
activation (involved in the affective dimension of pain). However,
there are no empirical evidence that painful expressions are
automatically associated with distress or empathic concern in
general. This question is relevant mainly because distress and
empathic concern involve different behavioural consequences:
distress is oriented to the self and might motivate individuals to avoid
the source of the threat and thus the person itself while empathic
concern is oriented to others and might make one more available to
care for others and thus to approach this person [6].
Related to automatic avoiding or approaching pain facial
expressions, Yamada and Decety [7] investigated if the detection
of pain in ambiguous expressions of pain (50% pain and 50%
happiness) was facilitated when primed by dislikeable words (e.g.,
liar, hypothesized to be associated with avoidance) or likable words
(e.g., honest, hypothesized to be associated with approach)
compared to scrambled words or to no prime at all. Using signal

Introduction
Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensory and emotional
experience associated with actual or potential body damage.
Painful feelings can be expressed by various ways (e.g., facial
expressions, voice prosody), and it has been suggested that
witnessing someone expressing pain triggers empathic affective
responses in the observer (e.g., [1]). Nevertheless, the exact nature
of these affective responses remains largely undetermined, notably
concerning their orientation. Particularly, it is still unclear whether
these responses to pain are mostly oriented towards the self or
towards the others. Self-oriented responses can be globally defined
as feelings of discomfort and distress focusing on the reduction of
the observers own distress when witnessing anothers negative
experience, while other-oriented responses are warmth and
empathic concern focusing on the others well- being [2]. So far,
studies have mainly investigated the role of moderators on state
empathic affective responses (distress versus empathic concern) for
someone in pain (e.g., [3]) or the association between trait
measures of empathic affective responses and neural activation in
response to painful facial expressions [4,5]. In terms of situational
empathic affective responses, only one study has investigated the

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Pain and Empathy

and 3000 msec). This was followed by (1) hash-mask symbols

(67 msec), (2) the prime (25 msec), (3) ampersands backward mask
(67 msec), and (4) by an ambiguous facial expression of pain
morphed with happiness (750 msec). Participants had then
3000 msec to categorize the face as pain or no-pain. In these
pre-tests, we used the same paradigm except that symbols were
used for mask and prime stimuli. Furthermore, additionally to
ambiguous facial expression of pain morphed with happiness, we
also presented ambiguous expressions of pain morphed with
neutral and fearful expressions, ambiguous expressions of fear
morphed with neutral and happy expressions, and ambiguous
expressions of happiness morphed with neutral expressions. These
morphed expressions were based on 16 original pictures from 4
different actors expressing 4 emotions (fear, pain, happy, or
neutral) [10]. The pictures came from the videos of Simon et al.s
[10] validated battery. For each emotion and for each actor, we
have selected the frame that was the most expressive and
transformed it into a picture. All the pictures were grayscaled.
The faces were then morphed with the program Morphman 2000
in order to obtain six expressions continua (fear-neutral, happiness-neutral, happiness-fear, pain-neutral, pain-happiness and
pain-fear).
In the pretest phase, 99 volunteers (76 females) were informed
that pictures of emotional and neutral facial expressions will be
presented and were instructed to categorize the expression that
predominates by pressing one of the two keys (1 or 2). The
instructions were as follow: For each trial, you will see a face. Your
task will be to assess which emotion predominates. By pressing 1
or 2, you will have 3 seconds to decide which emotional
expression predominates.
Because of the difficulty to find targets and fillers that
correspond to our criteria (cf Stimuli section), four different
sessions were necessary. The successive sessions only included the
expressions that were missing from the set of stimuli used in the
actual experiment (i.e., 24 targets and 48 fillers). Therefore, the
four different sessions were composed of different sets of pictures.
Furthermore, the sample of participants differed within each
session. Session 1 included 20 participants (15 females)
(MAge = 22.00; SDAge = 1.89), Session 2 included 60 participants
(51 females) (MAge = 20.65; SDAge = 2.25), Session 3 included 11
participants (6 females) (MAge = 24.72; SDAge = 3.00), and Session 4
included 8 participants (4 females) (MAge = 27.37; SDAge = 4.59).
Stimuli. The ambiguous targets were chosen if 50% of the
participants (from the pre-test phase) detected one expression and
if the other 50% of participants detected the other expression.
Because we have six expressions continua and four different actors,
there are 24 ambiguous targets. The fillers were also morphed
faces, but with a rate detection of 60% -40% (24 ambiguous fillers)
and 40%60% (24 ambiguous fillers). The fillers were only used in
order to reduce the salience of critical stimuli (i.e., targets), and will
therefore not be analyzed.
Primes. The primed words were selected from a database
that collected norms for words involving subjective (valence,
arousal, imageability and concreteness) and objective (length,
lexical frequency and complexity) dimensions [11]. There were
four neutral (e.g., salute), four negative (e.g., discouragement), four
distress (e.g., worried) or four empathic concern (e.g., tender)
words. The distress and empathic concern words were partly
based upon the research of Batson et al. [2] while no word from
the negative or neutral category was based on it. Nonparametric
tests revealed that based on these norms, the four categories were
similar in terms of length, lexical frequency, complexity, imageability, and concreteness (ps..08). The distress and negative words
did not differ in terms of valence (p = .90), but were more negative

detection theory, they showed that the criterion to judge

ambiguous faces as expressing pain was significantly different
from zero when the faces were primed by dislikeable words. This
suggests that participants more often judged ambiguous expressions of pain and happiness as expressing pain when these
expressions were primed by dislikeable words.
According to the authors, this supports that pain is automatically associated with avoidance from the threat value of pain and
not with a motivation to approach toward the other in pain.
Therefore, if painful expressions activate the threat system,
these expressions might also be associated with distress feelings
rather than compassion feelings (see [8]). However, several
methodological and statistical limits were related to this seminal
study [8,9]. Indeed, the main limitations of this paper were that: (1)
the primes are not directly associated with avoidance/approach or
affective empathic responses, (2) the design does not allow to refute
any facilitation effect resulting from a valence congruency, and (3)
the calculation of the criterion score as a detection signal index
while this latter is independent of the effect of the priming (see the
Method section for a more detailed explanation). Therefore, the
findings are difficult to interpret in terms of avoidance or approach
motivation and respectively in terms of distress or empathic
concern.
In order to understand how painful expressions are automatically associated with empathic affective responses, we will address
these limitations (1) by presenting distress and empathic concern
primes, (2) by controlling for other variables (i.e., negative and
neutral primes and targets), and (3) by using only the detection
signal index that is relevant with this paradigm (i.e., sensitivity
scores). More specifically, the present study will explore three
unresolved questions: Are ambiguous painful expressions more
associated with self-oriented or other-oriented feelings (Aim 1)? If
ambiguous painful expressions are associated with these feelings, is
it due to an effect of prime (Aim 2) and/or to an effect of valence
congruency (Aim 3)?
In sum, this study aims to investigate three different but related
effects on the detection of pain in ambiguous expressions of pain
(in terms of responses and reaction times): The effect of selforiented versus other-oriented feelings on the detection of pain in
ambiguous expressions of pain (distress versus empathic concern
primes) (Aim 1) by controlling for the effect of prime (distress versus
neutral primes; empathic concern versus neutral primes) (Aim 2)
and for the effect of valence congruency (distress versus negative
primes) (Aim 3).

Method
Participants
Seventy students in Psychology at the Universite Catholique de
Louvain (52 females) took part in the study. They were aged from
18 to 31 (M = 21.70; SD = 2.00). They were paid 8 Euros for their
participation. We obtained written informed consent from each
participant, which was approved by the ethical committee of the
Psychological Sciences Research Institute (Universite Catholique
de Louvain).

Material
Pre-test. A pretest phase was conducted in order to select 24
targets and 48 fillers of ambiguous facial expressions. For these
pre-tests, the paradigm was based on Yamada and Decetys [7]
study (see Fig. 1). In the original paradigm, participants were asked
to complete the priming task in which prime words were
subliminally presented for 25 msec. Each trial started with a
fixation cross (presented for a duration that varied between 1000
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Pain and Empathy

Figure 1. Schematic overview of a typical trial.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0100434.g001

than neutral words and empathic concern words (ps,.001).

Empathic concern words were more positive than neutral words
(p,.001). In terms of arousal, neutral words were less arousing
than empathic concern, negative words and distress words (ps,
.001). These three latter categories did not differ from each other
for arousal (p..25).

of pain morphed with happiness, fear or neutral when primed with

distress words; (2) a miss corresponded to a no-pain response
to the same trials; (3) a false alarm corresponded to a pain
response to facial expressions of pain morphed with happiness,
fear or neutral when primed with compassion, negative or neutral
words; (4) a correct rejection corresponded to a no-pain
response to the same trials. The fear-neutral, happy-neutral, and
fear-happy blocks were added only to reduce the salience of critical
stimuli (i.e., targets) and will therefore not be analyzed.
For each block (i.e., pain-neutral, pain-fear, pain-happiness), a
sensitivity score [d-prime = Z(hit)- Z(false alarm)] was calculated to
measure the sensitivity to the presence of pain when primed with
distress words. If the sensitivity score that refers to the sensitivity to
detect pain in ambiguous facial expression of pain after distress
words (hits) relative to (1) empathic concern words [Z(Hit_Distress)
Z(False Alarms_Empathic_Concern)], (2) neutral words [Z(Hit_
Distress) Z(False Alarms_Neutral)], or (3) negative words
[Z(Hit_Distress) Z(False Alarms_Negative)], is positive, this will
suggest that painful expressions are associated with self-oriented
feelings (1) to a greater extent than other-oriented feelings (2)
independently of a priming effect or (3) independently of a valence
congruency effect. In terms of reaction times, a similar conclusion
can be drawn if the difference between the reaction times to detect
pain in ambiguous painful expressions after self-oriented feelings
and reaction times to detect pain in painful expressions after
empathic concern words, neutral words or negative words is
significantly different from zero: positive values will suggest that
painful expressions are associated with self-oriented feelings (1) to a
greater extent than other-oriented feelings (2) independently of a
priming effect or (3) independently of a valence congruency effect.
In order to investigate whether compassion words facilitate the
detection of pain, a sensitivity score was also calculated for
compassion primes: a hit corresponded to a pain response to
ambiguous facial expressions of pain morphed with happiness, fear
or neutral when primed with compassion words; a false alarm
corresponded to a pain response in to facial expressions of pain
morphed with happiness, fear or neutral when primed with neutral
words) [Z(Hit_Empathic_Concern) Z(False Alarms_Neutral)].
Regarding the analysis of reaction times (RTs) in responses to
50%50% ambiguous painful facial expressions, we have
subtracted the RTs to detect pain after compassion, negative or
neutral primes from the RTs to detect pain after distress primes.

Procedure
The instructions and the design of the main experiment were
identical to the pre-test except that the primes were words and not
symbols (see Fig. 1). Participants were requested to perform the
priming task, in which prime words were subliminally presented
for 25 msec followed by an ambiguous facial expression presented
for 750 msec. Participants were instructed to categorize the
expressed emotion. There were 6 blocks (one for each type of
morphing) of 96 trials each [for the target 50%50%: 16 trials per
category of prime (16*4 trials); for the fillers 40%60%: 4 trials per
category of prime (4*4 trials); for the fillers 60%-40%: 4 trials per
category of prime (4*4 trials)]. Because our main focus was the
50%50% stimuli and because the experiment lasted around
35 minutes, we wanted to reduce as much as possible the number
of less relevant stimuli (40%60% and 60%-40%). Therefore, we
decided to present less fillers than targets.

Statistical analyses
Signal Detection analysis (see [7]) was used in order to
investigate the sensitivity of pain detection in 50%50% ambiguous painful facial expressions. However, contrary to Yamada and
Decetys [7] methodology, we have decided to avoid presenting a
block without primes in order to keep participants attentional
focus intact. Furthermore, we have chosen to measure the
sensitivity (d-prime) only and not criterion (C) because this latter
reflects a response bias that is independent of the priming effect
(see [9]). Yamada and Decety [7] indeed used two indices of
detection signal theory: the sensitivity and criterion indices. The
sensitivity score corresponded to the difference between hits (pain
response when faces are preceded by primes) and false alarm
(pain response when faces are not preceded by primes) and the
criterion corresponded to the sum of these false alarm and hits. The
criterion thus refers to trials that are primed (hits) and unprimed
(false alarms). Therefore, in the present study, (1) a hit
corresponded to a pain response to ambiguous facial expressions
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Note. The total of responses for each category of prime is 16.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0100434.t001

250.69

232.33
1311.64

1308.85
3.28

3.24
5.44

5.48
231.78

197.44
1182.58

1213.80
2.98

3.14
9.96

9.97
236.24

176.73
1272.67

1246.85

8.57
Mean

3.42
8.58
Negative

3.41

322.45

SD

280.69
1329.52

1346.78
3.35

2.97
5.13

5.70
167.60

230.58
1181.70

1149.23
3.27

3.31
10.04

9.67
213.80

209.97
1271.27
8.69
Neutral

1273.24
3.31
8.49
Distress

3.36

1294.00

M
SD

3.37
5.46

M
SD

260.20
1185.60

M
SD

3.01
10.13

M
SD

217.75
1306.04

M
SD

3.53

RTs (ms)
Response
RTs (ms)

Empathic Concern 8.51

Prime

The main aim of the study was to test whether painful

expressions are automatically associated with distress self-oriented
feelings or rather with other-oriented feelings of compassion. So
far, the topic has been mainly investigated at a neural level. This
study is the first to investigate the question at a behavioural level in
general (i.e., without focusing on possible moderators) with more
adequate methodology and statistical analyses than Yamada and
Decetys [7] study (1) by presenting distress and empathic concern
primes, (2) by refuting any facilitation effect resulting from a
valence congruency (i.e., presentation of negative primes and of
ambiguous facial expressions of fear) and (3) by using the only

Response

Discussion

RTs (ms)

The average detection RTs scores for each pain block (and for
each prime) are presented in Table 1. The one-sample t test analysis
revealed that the difference between the RTs to detect pain in
ambiguous expressions of pain morphed with neutral expression
when primed with distress words relative to negative words was
different from zero (Mdifference = 264.57; SDdifference = 2178.93;
t(66) = 2.1.69; p = .004; Cohens d = .42; Table 2). This suggests
that participants are faster to detect pain in ambiguous expressions
of pain morphed with neutral expression when these expressions are
primed by distress words relative to negative words. The other
difference scores were not significant (ps..07). The difference scores
for the other ambiguous expressions (fear-happy; fear-neutral;
happy-neutral) were not significantly different from zero (ps..05).
These results suggest that painful expressions are associated with
self-oriented feelings independently of an effect of valence
congruency (Aim 3). However, these expressions are not more
associated with self-oriented than with other-oriented feelings (Aim
1).

Response

Reaction times

Pain Fear

The average detection scores for each pain block (and for each
prime) are presented in Table 1. The signal detection analysis
revealed that relative to neutral words, the pain sensitivity score to
ambiguous painful faces primed with distress words was significantly
above-chance level in the block fear-pain (M sensitivity = 0.10,
SDsensitivity = 0.39) (t(66) = 2.03 p = .046; Cohens d = .50; Table 2).
In other words, when ambiguous painful expressions are morphed
with fear, participants detect more often pain when these
expressions are primed with distress words relative to neutral
words. The other sensitivity scores for ambiguous painful
expressions were not significantly above-chance level (ps.
.054).The sensitivity scores for the other ambiguous expressions
(fear-happy; fear-neutral; happy-neutral) were not significantly
above-chance level (ps..28).
These results suggest that painful expressions are associated with
self-oriented feelings independently of a mere effect of priming
(Aim 2). However, painful expressions were not more particularly
associated with self-oriented or with other-oriented feelings (Aim
1).

Pain - Neutral

Responses

Pain - Happiness

Results

Continuum

Table 1. Descriptive data (Mean and Standard Deviation) of pain responses and reaction times to ambiguous expressions of pain (50%50%) for each type of prime.

We have also subtracted the RTs to detect pain after neutral

primes from the RTs to detect pain after compassion primes.
Similarly to Yamada and Decety [7], the effects were compared
to zero by using one-sample t tests, with a significance level at p,
.05. The data are deposited in a publicly available database
(http://essenselab.wordpress.com/material/).

298.91

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Pain and Empathy

Table 2. One-sample t tests for each type of ambiguous expression of pain (i.e., morphed with happiness, neutral, and fearful
expressions) and for each contrast.

Morphing

Pain- Happiness

Pain- Neutral

Pain- Fear

Responses

Reaction times

t (66)

t (65)

Distress - Compassion

20.15

21.87

Distress - Neutral

20.15

20.23

Distress - Negative

20.50

0.94

Distress - Compassion

21.96

21.54

Distress - Neutral

21.61

21.69

Contrast (Primes)

Distress - Negative

21.21

22.95***

Distress - Compassion

0.94

1.29

Distress - Neutral

2.03*

20.07

Distress - Negative

0.68

1.08

Note. For Responses, positive values correspond to higher sensitivity to detect pain in ambiguous expressions of pain primed with distress words relative to compassion,
neutral or negative primes. For Reaction Times, negative values correspond to quicker detection of pain in ambiguous expressions of pain primed with distress words
relative to compassion, neutral or negative primes.
* p,.05;
*** p,.005.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0100434.t002

expressions. The present study might provide evidence of an

activation of a threat-detection mechanism when confronted with
distress words. It has been suggested that painful expressions are
associated with threat [12] and that threatening stimuli leads to
distress feelings [13]. The hypothesis that painful facial expressions
are associated to threat has been supported by recent findings
showing that these expressions require attentional resources at
very early time [12], which has been suggested to result from the
activation of the threat detection system. Thus, based on these
findings, we hypothesize that in the present study, the threat value
of painful expressions might have been activated by the distress
primes, accounting for the association between painful expressions
target and distress primes.
Importantly, we did not show that self-oriented primes facilitate
the processing of pain to a greater extent than other-oriented
primes (i.e., compassion words; Aim 1). It can thus not be
concluded that painful expressions are more associated with selforiented relative to other oriented responses. The temporal course
of these feelings might partly account for this result. We rather
suggest that our findings might support the hypothesis that both
self and other-oriented responses to someone expressing pain may
occur but at different moments (see [8]). Distress responses might
be automatically triggered, and might secondly turn into more
regulated feelings of concern. Because of the more automatic
nature of distress responses, it is presumed that these are not
influenced by moderator factors. However, we assume that the
association between painful expressions and empathic concern is
less automatic and might thus be influenced by moderators (e.g.,
emotion regulation abilities). It is worth mentioning that because
of the more complex nature of empathic concern, it may be
impossible to unconsciously prime with empathic concern as this
emotion might require longer time to process, and conscious
processing.
Furthermore, the hypothesis that both responses might occur is
in line with the fact that the exact nature of these responses to
painful expressions (i.e., self or other oriented) is still unclear. In
terms of neural activation in response to facial expressions of pain
and its association with situational and dispositional measures of
empathy, the results are inconsistent [14]. For instance, while

detection signal index that is relevant with this paradigm (i.e.,

sensitivity scores).
This study fills thus the gap regarding the association between
affective empathic responses and painful expressions. We used a
priming task in which ambiguous facial expressions of pain were
primed by distress and empathic concern words. More specifically,
this study had three aims: (1) investigating if painful expressions
are more associated with self-oriented or with other-oriented
feelings (Aim 1); (2) investigating that the possible association
between painful expressions with self-oriented feelings (or otheroriented feelings) is not due to the presence of primes (Aim 2); (3)
investigating if painful expressions are associated with self-oriented
feelings independently of an effect of valence congruency (Aim 3).
In order to refute any facilitation effect resulting from a valence
congruency we have added negative and neutral primes, and other
ambiguous facial expressions of arousing negative emotions (i.e.,
fear).
The findings revealed that relative to negative words primes,
distress words primes facilitate the detection of pain in 50% pain50% neutral expressions in terms of RTs (small effect size). We
have also shown that relative to neutral primes, distress primes
lead to greater sensitivity of pain in 50% pain-50% fear
expressions (medium effect size). It is worth mentioning that no
effect of prime was found for the other ambiguous expressions that
did not include painful expressions (i.e., fear-neutral, fear-happy;
happy-neutral). Our results thus showed that unconscious
processing of distress words facilitates the detection of pain
expression only relative to neutral and negative primes (Aim 2 and
3). The study of Yamada and Decety [7] has leaded to the same
conclusion, by showing that the criterion to judge the ambiguous
face as expressing pain was significantly different from zero when
the faces where primed by dislikeable words. However, as
suggested by Pfaller et al. [9], this index reflects a response bias
that is independent of the priming effec). Therefore, the present
study is the first to show that self-oriented feelings facilitate the
detection of painful expressions. Regarding the underlying
mechanisms, we argue that the facilitation effect of distress primes
on the detection of pain in ambiguous facial expressions of pain
might be accounted for by the threat-related value of painful
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Pain and Empathy

Lamm et al.s [1] study has shown that when participants have to
imagine the other, there is a positive correlation between
situational empathic concern responses and the activation in the
anterior medial cingulate cortex (involved in the affective
dimension of pain). Another study showed that the activation of
the left anterior insula, also involved in the affective component of
pain processing, correlated positively with dispositional measures
of empathic concern but also of personal distress [5].
All together, these studies support that the processing of painful
expressions is associated to affective empathic responses. However,
future studies are needed to focus on the degree of automaticity of
self and other-oriented responses. Furthermore, because we did
not specifically investigate how painful expressions lead to self or
other-oriented feelings, no conclusions can be drawn about the
emotions elicited by pain in others. Future studies should thus also
focus on the exact nature of the situational affective responses to
someone expressing pain, at both subjective and neural levels, and
to assess the possible moderators and change over time of these
feelings.
One methodological constraint has to be considered. The results
did not reveal similar effects of prime on ambiguous expressions of
pain in terms of RTs and responses.
This effect might be accounted for by the possible presence of a
speed accuracy trade-off. The descriptive data indeed show that
while the condition with shorter latencies (pain-neutral) is
characterized by greater detection of pain, the condition with
longer latencies (pain-fear) is characterized by lower detection of
pain. Therefore, the association between painful expressions and
distress might have emerged in different ways depending on the
morphing.
A second limitation refers to a possible sex effect. It has indeed
been shown that females report higher empathy responses (e.g.,
[15]). Future studies should thus include more male participants

and investigate if sex influences the detection of painful

expressions.
Finally, one could argue that the neutral words present a slightly
positive valence. This is based on the fact that primes were selected
from a battery that provides norms for words that present a social
dimension [11]. In this battery, the social dimension is defined as a
behaviour, a thought, or a feeling from a person to another person.
Therefore, the words cannot be totally neutral. However, the
valence of these words was less positive than empathic concern
and less negative than distress and negative primes. Furthermore,
the neutral primes were also less arousing than all other primes.

Conclusions
This study investigated for the first time if the activation of the
concept of distress and empathic concern would automatically
facilitate the processing of painful expressions. The present study
globally confirms, in a controlled design, the hypothesis that selforiented feelings of distress are associated with greater and rapid
recognition of ambiguous painful expressions and supports the
hypothesis that painful expressions may activate the avoidance
system. These results are thus a first step towards a further
exploration of the subjective and physiological aspects of these
feelings in response to someone expressing pain.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Caroline Poncelet for data collection.

Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: DG PM. Performed the
experiments: DG. Analyzed the data: DG PM. Wrote the paper: DG PM.

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July 2014 | Volume 9 | Issue 7 | e100434